


In the eye of the Copper

by numbika



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ankh Morpork - Freeform, Copper - Freeform, Crime, Discworld - Freeform, Other, Sam Vimes - Freeform, Samuel Vimes - Freeform, Terry Pratchett - Freeform, Vimes - Freeform, Watch, Watchman, Watchmen - Freeform, watch series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:09:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numbika/pseuds/numbika
Summary: Samuel Vimes finds himself chasing a hooded figure, but somehow it didnt end up him arresting it. And its not even Death. Miracles do exist, especially scientific ones.





	In the eye of the Copper

Sam Vimes was running. This was Vimes normal state of being so its not so unusual. What was unusual is who he was chasing. It was a figure, cladded in black robes, carrying an instrument he just stole from the Guild of Cunning artificers. This was quite a surprise in on itself since the Guild hall was so chuck full of dangerous machines, prototype siege engines, and -Due to some of the more paranoid members- literal death traps, that they never bothered to pay the annual protection fee to the Thieves Guild. Of course the individual members do paid their dues, but the Guild as a whole, never, any thief who could came out with all of his/her limbs in their proper place, clearly deserved whatever the aforementioned thief wanted. Due to this, the watch rarely ever bothered to patrol this street, only visiting it twice a night. As whatever passes for the thiefs luck, tonight there was a third patrol. It was consisted of one grumpy Sam Vimes after delivering a serial killer to the gentle care of Mr. Trooper. Well, serial killer is a little bit of a exaggeration, since “The Dyslexic Alphabet killer” as the papers called it, only ever got to kill two people before the watch caught him. The bodies were labelled as “A” and “W”. Sam should have been in a good mood. He caught the killer, and with that he put an end not only to a killing spree, but the massive gambling scheme Nobby put together to vote on the next letter. The best odds were on the Ephebian “γ”. But despite all that, Vimes just couldn’t bring himself to be happy. The bloke was clearly not on his right mind. As far as he know from the investigation he was a normal if a little bit quiet pot maker before some noble arrived at his doorstep with a retinue of lawyers and kicked him out of his own house, based on a paper his dad signed ten or so years ago. No wonder he broke, that shop was everything he had, and he couldn’t read well much less challenge a legal document. But despite all that, the man was still a killer, even if he only killed lawyers, so Mr Trooper will introduce him to his new necktie first thing in the morning. So, Vimes prowled the old streets revisiting his famous smoking pots, hoping against hope that the ever-growing fatigue would drive him home. That was the moment he noticed the robed figure. It just climbed out of the window of the “Hall of Wonders” as the guild members, or the “Hall of spinning sharp things and explosions” as the city called it, which was the museum of the Cunning Artificers Guild. He entertained the thought him, but the embers of Vimes cigar caught the thieves eye. Well then, what to do? Stick to the basics. 

\- Hey you! – Yelled the uniform greeting phrase of coppers all around the multiverse. There were probably creatures somewhere with tentacles and eyestalks carrying beam weapons and badges made out of solid dwarf star material who still followed it with “What are you doing there? “. So Vimes did so too. And the man started to run. Worst thing somebody can do when confronted with a copper. Guards and dogs besides their tendency to scratch themselves in inappropriate places have another thing in common, they must chase anybody who runs from them. Vimes gave into the temptation and lounged himself forward. The robed figure wasn’t a good runner, but most likely much younger then Vimes, and got a bit of head start. Vimes had to use all of his street smarts to slowly gain on him in the small alleys. When the figure was only a couple of steps away, it suddenly disappeared into a doorway. Commander Vimes were entirely unfamiliar with the place, but not the Duke of Ankh. On the days when an unnatural celestial conjunction somehow left the city with a relatively non-existent criminal activity, -Only an odd murder, robbery, or mass disappearances of forks or spoons on the patrol route of a particular watchman. - Sybill would grab his husband and bring him to buy the few things the Ramkins didn’t have a lifetime supply of thrusted to them by their ancestors. These were mostly dragon related accessories, clothes fitting to a gentleman for her husband, and plates and various glass items, including decorative vases and ashtrays. The first thing was a necessity due to the swamp dragons tendency to burn trough even the most heat resistant materials in just a few months, while the latter two were relegated to consumables due to Vimes. The clothes were deliberate, Vimes tried everything up to, and including feeding the frilly abominations to Sybill beloved the fire breathing lizards, but the woman never gave up on trying to dress her husband as a proper nobleman. The glasses, well, that was due to both of them. They both had the tendency to jump up suddenly if a dragon related emergency, or a heureka moment in an investigation came, and due to this exquisitely made ornamental pots, vases, plates and drinking cups were a common victim of their rashness. And when they needed some resupply, they came here. The old Rupert Prince owned the finest glassmaking shop in the whole city. Their glassblowing was said to be so good, they were on par with the ones made by Igors. Vimes thought they were damn fancy for sure, but without Sybill he would have never needed a glass ashtray shaped like the ducal coronet, but he had to admit, it came handy when he threw it so hard, that a prospecting assassin still wore the insignia embedded in his forehead. As of two weeks ago, the shop was in the hands of the son of the old Master. It was said that Rupert Jr. although a bit of a strange fellow, was even better of a craftsman than his father. And right now, he was also a suspect in breaking and entering without a thief license. The Commander gave out a dissatisfied grunt and knocked on the door. It slowly creaked open on its own…  
\- What the hell... - Said the Commander under his breath. - I swear of this is something like the gonne again, I am going to personally search every guild hall and threw everything dangerous I find into the Ankh. - After a couple of seconds, he added. - And post Detritus there for a fortnight to guard until it sinks. - Vimes slowly inched forward into the darkness behind the door. It was probably a very bad idea. On the other hand, Rupert Jr. was a young man with a perpetual expression of forlorn longing certain kind of artist have, and was about as combat effective as a training dummy. Vimes never visited the workshop section of a glass working shop before, but it was truly breath-taking. Two giant forges, smouldered in the other side of the room, their dim orange light unable to truly reach the door. Around them were hundreds of finished glass products, all of them shimmering in the firelight like countless small floating ember. Tubes, vases, plates, strange beakers for the alchemists, even strange appliances for the University, and there was something most likely for the Seamstresses since it was shaped exactly like a…Well anyway, it still reflected the fire as all the others. Vimes slowly inched closer to the light, searching with his eyes for the robed figure. But it was nowhere to be seen. Buckets full of pure white material, far from the brown sticky mess with the consistency of a cat litter which was commercially available in Ankh Morpork under the name “Sand”. It was obviously used for art instead of building, or simply for kids to play in. Besides the buckets there were instruments, ordered by size, small metal trumpets as far as Vimes could tell. They were probably used for glassblowing. A couple of moulds for cheap drinking cups and vases, but nowhere the master of the workshop. After a couple seconds of looking around the Commander found what he was searching for. Another source of light, faint on the ground, not far from the corner of the room. He slowly and cautiously approached it and crouched down. It was a battered trapdoor, hardly hid by anything more than the general lack of illumination in the room. Straightening out he slowly pulled it up with his left leg. Below it was an old ladder leading down.

\- Wonderful. Perfect for ambushes from down and I can hardly defend myself on it. The sensible thing would be to turn around and get some reinforcement. -Murmured Vimes under his nose gazing into the waiting shaft below. – I will climb, down wouldn’t I? Because I am Vimes, and that’s what I do. Ye gods, I am gonna kill myself by policing, maybe staying an alcoholic would have been better. – He said while slowly climbing into the barely illuminated shaft. The light came from a side passage at the bottom of the ladder. He descended inch by inch. To his surprise, no attack came from below, and he safely landed on his own paper soled feet. It was a good idea to take out his hidden cheap boots from his drawer before going to the chase. It not only helped him catch “The Dyslexic ABC killer” but also gave him a certain kind of comfort. Like a small fortress off essential Vimes-ness around his foot. The side passage was illuminated, to Vimes surprise wasn’t with torches or candles, but with genuine fat burning oil lamps. They were quite expensive and Rupert Jr. could certainly afford them, but besides the equipment anything Vimes seen so far lacked in luxuries. This place must be important to him… Vimes stepped forward, after about four meters, the small passage ended in a big sturdy wooden door. It looked quite new and expertly made, to open it forcefully would require at least a couple of strikes from Detritus, but fortunately it was slightly ajar. The commander approached it, and gently eased his palm around the doors brass latch. He opened it a little bit more, just enough so that it wouldn’t make any noise but he could squeeze into the room. And he was almost instantly blinded by the sparkles. When he regained his sight, he found himself in a kaleidoscope of lights and colours. The room was full of small round cuts of glass. Some were bent inwards, some outwards, there were even some which looked like a triangle which had its side pushed inwards by some giant who wasn’t bothered by that the glass had to be glowing hot to do it. Lenses. -Remembered Vimes. -They were lenses. The artificers recently started to construct telescopes, and the Wizards at the University wore glasses since a couple of hundred years ago. Although the constructs of the Artificers were simplistic at best, and sometimes showed the images upside down, but these were intricate, and small. The lenses of the artificers could compare to these like donkeys could compare to trough breed race horses. And then again, the Wizards used magic to create their spectacles, but these…Well, it’s fair to say to say that Vimes learned to recognize magic in the same way forest animals recognize the first whiff of smoke in the air, it smelled like trouble. Well this wasn’t smelled like trouble, it was just very good craftmanship. Each individual lenses was placed inside a metal ring, and those were tied to strings making them look like some kind of elaborate necklace. It would be a pretty big necklace, long enough to hung down to the belly even of the biggest Troll, since the end of strings were attached to the ceiling. Amongst the suspended puddles of light, there was a small path deeper into the room. The Commander slowly inched along it, taking care to not nudge any of the strings. Unfortunately, he was so concentrated that he forgot to check if anything on the floor. Something got under his feet, by the feeling, some kind of metal cylinder, and Vimes made a not particularly majestic or duke like flop into the floor, sending the unknown object tumbling into the rows of lenses. Glassy and metallic tingling erupted into the air, along with a few crackles, not only alerting every possible listener to the newcomer, but also that he just pulverised a couple of lenses. The tingling drowned out for what felt like an eternity, and then came silence. 

And still after that a small weary voice from the other side of the room.  
\- Hello? - Vimes grunted and pushed himself back to his feet. His back was now aching, and most of his clothes were covered in small pieces of broken glass. He was lucky that none of it got under it. With this embarrassing episode ending his carrier as a covert operation expert he instead grunted authoritatively.  
\- My name is Sam Vimes, I am the Commander of the City Watch and I am investigating a broke in into the Guild of Artificers. The eyewitness was me and myself, so be helpful and don’t try to deny it. – With that Commander Vimes, now ignoring the giling-galang of the countless glass circles, squares and ellipses throdded right in the direction of the voice. When he arrived at the edge of the sparkling forest he found himself face to face with the suspect. It was indeed, Rupert Jr. The young man’s fading red hair and freckles now unobstructed by the hood he wore. From a close inspection, it was some unnatural melding of safety work clothes and outgoing coats. Sybill had some similar outfits, but she wasn’t too much in favour of them. As she said, they were woefully inadequate on both front. They looked ugly for everyday use, and they weren’t nearly safe enough to work in. It was thick and leathery around the edges, and hard but still soft everywhere else. The abomination of the tailoring art was already covered with a couple of burn marks, and looked like somebody used it for bedding under some creature which time to time sneeze flakes of molten glass. Sybill was usually right. Rupert Jr. looked frightened, like some kind of baby animal so Vimes after a little bit of throat clearing added. - And good evening to you lad. Can you tell me what were you doing? – The buy gulped and fiddled around the pockets of his clothes, at last he found something and took it out. He held it in front of him like some kind of defensive charm. It was an identification card.  
\- I…I have a card denoting me as a master craftsman of the Artificers guild, since I have played the affiliation fee and I inherited the workshop from my Pa a couple of months ago!! - He blurted out so fast, it was a wonder he didn’t choke himself on his own tongue. The commander blinked a couple of times and took the card. It seemed entirely legit, and indeed, just now he remembered that he heard about the boy getting his card from his wife a couple of weeks before. The commander had a peculiar type of memory, most of the thing Sybill said during breakfast he only registered at a subconscious level, and where hence locked away. It seemed like the only time Vimes had the required clearance to view such deeply buried memories when he could connect it to a crime.  
\- But…then why were you climbing trough the fence? The whole building is full of ingenious death traps!! You know the guy who has the keys don’t you? You could have just asked him to let you in!! -Rupert Jr. looked a little sheepish.  
\- You know commander I was in a hurry and that never occurred to me. – Vimes had to grab the side of a nearby desk or he would have sat down then and there. The boy waded through whirling blades, mechanical crossbows, fire spraying tubes and who knows what types of devilish contraptions, in the middle of the night, because he forgot he can just wake up the janitor. He probably didn’t even noticed the traps.  
\- Why where you in such a hurry anyway…? - Asked the commander after a couple of seconds of silence while he composed his thoughts.  
\- Oh! – Suddenly a strange like sparked inside the pale blue eyes of the scrawny glassblower. If Vimes would have recognised the light, he would have been identified it as a spark of maddened genius. This type of insanity was rare in the disc, and even more dangerous. Forest animals might run from the smell of smoke, Vimes might recognise magic, but a deer has a hard time recognising a thermonuclear explosion. And usually don’t have time to. – It’s a wonderful thing! -Jumped Rupert Jr. suddenly full of energy. Gone were the shy young boy, he was energetic and quite confident both in his posture and his voice. -I have made the world first…- The boy was stumped a little bit but then he carried on nonetheless. - Well I think of it a name later. The thing is it is capable of bending the light such a way that small things become big things.  
\- …What? Like a telescope or something? - Rupert tried to nod and shake his head at the same time. It made a peculiar circular motion instead. The boy pointed to the table. On it there was quiet a big metallic cylinder, like a small telescope, but it had even smaller and smaller cylinders reaching out from it. Beside the object there was another, it was some kind of craftsman’s tool, it had a couple of carving blades, skiving instruments, and something small with apparently soft coating. – I had to use one of the old inventions from the Guild. It was made by Leonardo the Quirm, and could polish and cut glass so much better than anything I got. I just finished putting in the smallest and last lenses before you arrived! Come on take a look! - Vimes tried to protest and tell the boy that if there was no crime he really should just go into his merry way but there was something so imperious in the glassblowers voice. He gave a sigh and looked into the bigger end of the tube, since that’s faced upwards. At first it was blurry, but slowly the image ordered itself in his eye. It was something gnarly, green and full off bristles.  
\- …Umm. Wonderful. What am I seeing now?  
\- The tip of the leg of a small cricket. Just the very tip of it. And that’s not the end of it. - Said Rupert Jr and reached out and slowly turned something at the end of the device. Vimes wrinkled his eyebrows, the image disappeared, and reappeared. Or not, this was a different image, still green but, it was made out of small sections, like the leg itself was some kind of Jigsaw puzzle. - And that’s the end of one of the bristles.  
\- Don’t be daft… - Said Vimes straightening himself out. - Nothing can see that far down…  
\- Except my device! - Exclaimed Rupert Jr. with absolute certainty. The sparks in his eyes shone like a pair of torches in the darkness. If Vimes were a Wizard he would have recognised an Idea. An Idea with capital letters, like those haunting the head of Leonard the Quirm day and night. Ideas from different worlds, Ideas from the future, Ideas living and wishing to be made material. But this one, this one wasn’t sucked into the brilliant but ultimately untidy bald head of the old genius. This one found itself a fertile new ground. - It could be used to do a number of things! Almost anything even! - Exclaimed Rupert Jr. rubbing his hands together. -But firstly, I think it would be best as a Medical instrument!! – Vimes found himself repeating his earlier outburst about daftness.  
\- Doctors don’t need something like this, they just write you herbs and chemicals and make you better. What good is it do to watch someone dying, just more clearly? – Rupert Jr. deflated little bit at such words. The light dimmed in his eyes, but the commander patted him in his shoulders.  
\- But you know who could use it? – The boy blinked, the light fizzed a little.  
\- Who? – Asked with a little hope in his voice.  
\- Us, policeman. We always have to look at things to get more and more smaller details. I think Cherry would give up her battle-axe to use something like that. Or at the very least her supplement battle-axe. – The idea inside Rupert Jr.’s head twisted itself a little. It wasn’t what it was expecting. It imagined itself in the hands of scientist and artificers, looking into the ways of microcosms. Not policeman looking for clues. But, it found itself strangely conforming to the idea.  
\- Yes…It does sound like something very use full to you. – Sparked the light alive again inside Rupert Jr.’s eyes. It shone even brightly now.  
\- Sure it does. – Smiled Vimes a little bit. And it really did. Cheery always complained about the imps being unable to paint the smallest details, even ones with the sharpest eyes. Something like this would most likely assist her immensely, and what helped her, helped the whole watch in the end. And it wasn’t even magic. Just craftmanship. Good old fashioned craftmanship. Except it was new. And nobody ever called it good old fashioned before. Vimes wondered briefly where the phrase came from. The Idea smiled brightly inside Rupert Jr.’s eye. – Tell you what, I want four for Pseudopolis yard, and I imagine other policing forces around the plains would want some too.  
\- And as thanks I will name it after you! - Exclaimed Rupert happily.  
\- Off cours…WHAT? By the gods please don’t do that!!!

The Mark 1. Samuel type Macroscope became a standard equipment in the forensic departments of the guard forces around Discworld.


End file.
